štúdia:

Social control; Law; socialisation; post-modern control; the policies of social control and law

Social Control and the Law. The article deals with social control and law understood as a means of social control. Having defined the concept of social control, which is very close to the English term „control“, meaning power, controlling and checking behaviour of a group members, the attention is paid to the main means of social control. A universal means of social control is understood to be socialisation. In the area of law it is legal socialisation, which is linked to the establishment of legal consciousness.
The whole area of social control can be seen as a relation between an individual and society, the extent of the respect towards a given social order on one side and the extent of power – the enforcement of norms of behaviour – on the other side. Social control is a way, which society uses to influence the behaviour of members of society, or a given social group. Law is only one of possible ways of social control, used in particular when other forms are inefficient or inaccessible. Facing the increase of crime, terrorism and violence in the world, feared loss of trust and limitations to the quality of life, discussions are being held about the need to intensify control. The main trends of post-modern control include high tech controlling rituals as parts of everyday life.
The article also describes the policies of social control and law as tools of social control. It explains the importance and changes of social control in a traditional, modern and post-modern society. An attention is also paid to changes in the area of social control, to the transition from panopticon to synopticon, from a literary analogy of Orwell ´s 1984 to Huxley’s End of Civilization and Kakas Trial as an additional source of inspiration.

Alternative Sanctions in the Context of Strategies of Social Control of Criminality (From Retributive Justice to Restorative Justice). The article deals with the changes of criminal justice policy as it has developed during previous decades in Slovakia as well as abroad. Changes of criminal justice and punishment are understood in context of large societal changes characteristic to the recent period of modern (or post-modern) society. The basic framework of discussion are: trends of criminality (changes in measures and structure of crime and crime rates, changes of crime profiles of offenders), new trends in criminology (the crisis of aetiological paradigm and new criminological theories – new administrative or actuarial criminology, social constructionist school and postmodernism) and trends in crime control policy and punitive policy (stronger punishment versus alternative sanctions).
Great attention is paid to the model of restorative justice as an alternative to a classical model of criminal justice – the retributive model. The author enlists all main criminological arguments against social effectiveness of retributive model and imprisonment, using criminological these of J. Young, D. Garland, Z. Bauman, J. Braithwaite, C. Shearing and other British and American criminologists. Criminology’s traditional focus upon the institutions of police, courts and prisons may be decreasingly irrelevant to the new harms, risks and mechanisms of control that are emerging today.
The author describes the basic issues of restorative justice, namely diversion and mediation (between the victim and the offender). Important assumptions of effective application of this access, mainly in relation to young offenders and delinquency of the young (the attachment of execution of alternative sanctions for young offenders with social work activities) are discussed.
In conclusion she summarizes the possibilities of the application of alternative sanctions in Slovakia (concerning the preparation of complex re-codification of Criminal Law in Slovakia). She deals with some important theoretical implications, which contribute the issues of restorative justice (for law, sociology and criminology).

Religious regulation; religious law; religious freedom; separation of the State and the Church; deprivatisation of religions

The Influence of Legal Regulations on the Development of Religious Life in Slovak Republic. In 1990, new legislative conditions were established which enabled the free functioning of churches and religious organisations and provided religious freedom. Since then, there has been rise in the numbers of people declaring their faith and, at the same time, a gradual limitation of equal competition between groups working in this field. In comparison to other models in United States or in Western Europe that exhibit a gradual loosening of the ties between state and religion, in Slovakia, legislative modifications head towards the reinforcement of the link between traditional churches and the state. The deprivatisation of religion has arisen mainly due to direct state financial support of registered churches as well as the increasing influence of religious notions in politics. The treaty signed between the Slovak Republic and Vatican has had a significant impact, since it has mean setting up religious lessons in state and public schools, establishing an institute of religious exceptions as well as creating new working places in public and state administration for church representatives.